Karma regen, Karma prohibition, who is waiting on regen?

[Eyeball]

Are you comparing raising riding, shield use and parrying, to raising weapon skills? Who, exactly, do you think you're fooling, here?

What? I'm not *comparing* anything, I'm saying those are necessary to have an effective fighter too. You're going to have to go through the grind if you want a powerful character. Weapon skill bumps don't relieve you of that.

[Heade]

If you look back to the first announcements on Extended Subguilds, you will find they were conceived in conjunction with spendable karma.  We may have gotten used to them being available, during parts of the interim period.  However, everyone knew the plan, or should have, as it was clearly communicated.

Yeah, I anticipated your feelings on this, Brokkr. I still think making them 1 karma across the board makes the most sense for the game. Having the 2 karma ESGs just makes people pick magickers instead, making this MagicGeddon. And if that's what staff wants, fine. But let's change the docs to reflect the change in the IC culture, then. It's jarring to have half the PCs you meet be secret magickers while still attempting to RP and pretend magick is rare and frightening IC.

My personal feelings aren't expressed in that, it is merely a statement that if you've done your reading you should have known what was coming.

I can see everyone's class and subclass in the game by simply typing "who".  I am not seeing an issue, in terms of distribution between mundane and magickal subclasses. If this is happening with half the PCs you meet, you are meeting a tiny fraction of the available characters, and are very far out the tail in terms of probability. Classes are irrelevant as we passed a milestone within the last couple of months, such that no PC main class magicker characters remain.

I mean, your feelings were reflected in the decision that was reached, right? You have a big hand in that, after all.

As for the percentage of characters that are not strictly mundanes, care to share that percentage? What percentage of unique logins per month are playing touched/magick/mul/HG's? How about the average percentage, or even number of these being played at peak, when there are 40 people on?

Also, it should be considered that I said "half of the new people you meet". So, if touched/magick characters have, overall, a significantly shorter average lifespan than many of the mundane PCs that play every day, it might show as a smaller percentage of currently logged in PCs, but the fact that we keep running into them over and over IC before they die could represent that the number of PCs being CREATED(and thus, encountered IC) as touched/magick/mul/HG's could still be nearing 50% even if the number logged in doesn't. They just die faster.

The REALLY useful data would be what is being created regularly, along with playtime statistics. I know some players create mundane throwaways to play around with while waiting for karma to regen to play another magicker, so the numbers will be skewed slightly there, too.

But taking a close look at this data would be a good idea, I think.

[Derain]

I agree Brokkr we were informed but also I have to say it isn't helping the population numbers I was just offering a friendly discussion here for ideas.

[Vex]

What? I'm not *comparing* anything, I'm saying those are necessary to have an effective fighter too. You're going to have to go through the grind if you want a powerful character. Weapon skill bumps don't relieve you of that.

The skills you outline, are some of the easiest and fastest in the game to raise. They're inconsequential, in the scope of grinding a "powerful" character, as you say.

Suggesting they'll keep a weapon skill bumped fighter, from MASSIVELY out pacing a non-bumped fighter, is ridiculous, and frankly, insulting. It absolutely relieves you, of 10-20 days worth of grinding, and gives you a huge advantage, right out of the gate, that'll last pretty much indefinitely, considering so few people can max a weapon skill.

Seriously, "vet", you must be trolling.

[tapas]

A 3 karma player, can double bump weapon skills

That character is still going to be crap at parrying, shield use and such and will need to train. He or she will still potentially be a crappy rider and will be falling off mounts for a while. It's not such a big advantage.

Like Mansa noted, it would be great if some stats could be compiled.

And all of the above is a complete wash if you don't have the stats to take advantage of them.

[Eyeball]

What? I'm not *comparing* anything, I'm saying those are necessary to have an effective fighter too. You're going to have to go through the grind if you want a powerful character. Weapon skill bumps don't relieve you of that.

The skills you outline, are some of the easiest and fastest in the game to raise. They're inconsequential, in the scope of grinding a "powerful" character, as you say.

Suggesting they'll keep a weapon skill bumped fighter, from MASSIVELY out pacing a non-bumped fighter, is ridiculous, and frankly, insulting. It absolutely relieves you, of 10-20 days worth of grinding, and gives you a huge advantage, right out of the gate, that'll last pretty much indefinitely, considering so few people can max a weapon skill.

Seriously, "vet", you must be trolling.

I don't care, believe what you want.  A weapon skills bump doesn't mean you start out as a god of war, that's all there is to it. There still will be plenty of people to kick your ass and a long grind to change that. Hardly worth not playing for months just because you can't get a bump.

[Lizzie]

If they brought back full elemental guilds/classes back, and eliminated the magick subguilds/classes, and those magick guilds were all karma-locked, you could then reduce the karma requirements of the extended subclasses while still requiring "one" karma point for them. That would completely solve the perceived problem, as I'm seeing it.

Or otherwise isolate magick from everything else so you can play whatever, however, with minimal karma requirement BUT if you choose a magick option you have to deal with the wait.

[Vex]

I don't care, believe what you want.  A weapon skills bump doesn't mean you start out as a god of war, that's all there is to it. There still will be plenty of people to kick your ass and a long grind to change that. Hardly worth not playing for months just because you can't get a bump.

You start out better, you spend less time grinding, and typically will end up at a higher peak, than someone who doesn't get the bump. That is significant. You can down play it as you like, but that, as well as the other advantages of karma (magic, ext subs, etcs) are the primary reasons, people wait for karma to regenerate.

If they weren't, nobody would care about it, and threads like this, wouldn't exist.

[tapas]

[tapas]

I don't care, believe what you want.  A weapon skills bump doesn't mean you start out as a god of war, that's all there is to it. There still will be plenty of people to kick your ass and a long grind to change that. Hardly worth not playing for months just because you can't get a bump.

You start out better, you spend less time grinding, and typically will end up at a higher peak, than someone who doesn't get the bump. That is significant. You can down play it as you like, but that, as well as the other advantages of karma (magic, ext subs, etcs) are the primary reasons, people wait for karma to regenerate.

If they weren't, nobody would care about it, and threads like this, wouldn't exist.

It's not as powerful as you might think.

But you'll have to trust me on this.

[Vex]

I don't.

[Bogre]

I have posted this before; but I again would probably just ghost for a while until karma regenned to play what I wanted to play.

I'm sure in almost all cases, I would want to play an ESG. I think they're great. I see a lot of cool pairings with the new classes. But if I had a char with an ESG get accidentally scrabbed on day 5, I'm pretty sure I'd be super discouraged to get right back in the game. So I think I agree with them being dropped in karma requirement.

[mansa]

If I were to suggest another type of change...

I would put a block on the exact same karma subclass / karma race that was chosen, rather than the karmic tier.

[Lizzie]

If I were to suggest another type of change...

I would put a block on the exact same karma subclass / karma race that was chosen, rather than the karmic tier.

Or even the category of subclass. If you pick a magick subclass, then you can't play another magick subclass for awhile. If you play an extended subclass, then you can't play one of those for awhile. Same with skill bumps (is that still a thing?).

[evilcabbage]

when they allowed more than one skill bump on a weapon skill, i picked slashing weapons as a warrior in the south.

think it was a max of three points.

i received those three bumps.

i was journeyman.

that's three bumps.

[Hauwke]

Never had a weapon skill bumped, never struggled because of that.

[Miggy]

Would like to point out something else that sorta bugs me here with karma regen. Lets say you have two karma, and use it for a PC and are at 0. So, you live long enough to get one back, and are well on your way to get the second, but you die a week before that happens. So, my next character concept just uses one karma to make a new PC, I am reset to 0, and have to wait the entire time period, instead of just the week. So that long 120 days can easily turn into a LOT longer if you get unlucky and die fast.

[Heade]

Would like to point out something else that sorta bugs me here with karma regen. Lets say you have two karma, and use it for a PC and are at 0. So, you live long enough to get one back, and are well on your way to get the second, but you die a week before that happens. So, my next character concept just uses one karma to make a new PC, I am reset to 0, and have to wait the entire time period, instead of just the week. So that long 120 days can easily turn into a LOT longer if you get unlucky and die fast.

This is a good question I'd like to know the answer to, as well. I'm not sure exactly how the timers work.

[Lizzie]

I don't see the problem really. If you have 2 karma, you get set to 0 with a 2-karma character, earn 1 back and the character dies.
You now have 1 karma point to spend IF you choose to spend any at all.

You can choose 1, and be reset to 0 and spend the usual time earning back both...

Or you can choose a 0-karma character, and earn your second in the expected amount of time.

There are plenty of 0-karma options now that this shouldn't be a problem at all. There are also enough 1-karma options that it shouldn't be a problem at all. Unless you usually make characters who take the kinds of risks that get them killed within the first RL month of playing - maybe once in awhile switch it up and make the type of character who doesn't take those kinds of risks. Maybe they take different types of risks that don't result in getting killed within their first few weeks.

There's a lot of wiggle room between "take zero risks ever and live a long, boring, mind-numbing life" and "take all the risks and get PKed before 2 days played." A zero-karma character can very easily fit into the middle of that.

[Vox]

I'd prefer some statistics about player habits that would dictate a change.

How many characters get created
Have karma spent
Real life time before death
Time spent before making a new character
New character karma spent
Typical breakdown of class / subclass / race

Mmmmm data

This.

[Vex]

Or you can choose a 0-karma character, and earn your second in the expected amount of time.

Or, you can just wait and go elsewhere/do something else until it's restored, which is what some are choosing to do, which was one of the points of discussion, raised by the op.

[Lizzie]

Or you can choose a 0-karma character, and earn your second in the expected amount of time.

Or, you can just wait and go elsewhere/do something else until it's restored, which is what some are choosing to do, which was one of the points of discussion, raised by the op.

But that would be no different from when karma was first introduced. That was many years ago. The non-karma options presently are more diverse than they were when karma first came out. If you were the type of person who would refuse to play a game just because you couldn't play anything you want, any time you want, then I don't know what to tell you. Even in Monopoly, only one person gets to use the iron game piece.

[th3kaiser]

I'd have to disagree Lizzie. If I want to play a karma-gated whatever, I'm going to wait for the regen. This game is so time consuming I'm increasingly less likely to just play a throwaway I'm not super interested in during my diminishing free-time.

[Lizzie]

I'd have to disagree Lizzie. If I want to play a karma-gated whatever, I'm going to wait for the regen. This game is so time consuming I'm increasingly less likely to just play a throwaway I'm not super interested in during my diminishing free-time.

I have "x" hours per day to spend doing anything that doesn't cost money (since I'm on a limited income and budget). I can watch TV, watch movies, read books, browse the internet, do social media, and play games. I like Armageddon, and I don't like TV much. I also would prefer to be a contributor to my entertainment choices, and playing Arm allows me to contribute. If I can't play a karma class and I don't have a character at the moment, I'll roll up a non-karma class. I LIKE certain character options, but I'm not married to them. Once they got rid of full elemental magicks, I made the conscious decision that I wouldn't choose to play an elemental subguild. Instead of refusing to play, period, until they bring them back, I made the decision that I'd just enjoy the game and not obsess about the class I don't get to play anymore.

I STILL miss full elemental classes and still wish they'd bring them back, but their absence isn't going to make me leave. There's plenty of fun things about the game that are available for me to enjoy.

[Delirium]

I'm just gonna leave this here: redshirt throwaway PCs are really fun to play. The byn runner who goes down the well first, the angry spice head who (unsuccessfully) tries to shank a soldier for beating up his mum, the street sweeper who drunkenly insults Important Person B... the list goes on.